Grisly discoveries in the region

KITCHENER — A torso found in a garbage bin behind a Kitchener apartment building Saturday is not the only unsettling crime scene discovery over the years in Waterloo Region.

Others include:

• March 1998: Acting on a tip, homicide detectives discovered the torso of Vincent Kraehling, 64, in a shallow grave near a community trail between Manitou Drive and Wabanaki Drive. The rest of his body was never found.

Kraehling was last seen four months earlier getting out of a taxi at his apartment at 54 Indiana Rd., near Frederick Mall and down the street from Saturday’s discovery at 250 Frederick St.

Kraehling shared the apartment with Linda Wagman who was originally convicted of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Kraehling. She was later declared criminally not responsible.

• December 1998: The skeletal remains of Robert Hessel, 62, of Kitchener were found by children in a swampy section of Stanley Park Conservation Area off River Road in Kitchener. A weeklong search by police recovered 40 bones, including a skull and a jaw with teeth.

Dental records identified Hessel who went missing five years earlier in July 1993. William Brown was charged with his murder, but was eventually set free in a Kitchener courtroom after Jesse Lord, a key witness, recanted a statement he gave police about a jailhouse confession.

• May 1995: Pamela Bonn’s body, bound in sheets and blankets, was found by two boys walking through Mausser Park, near Stirling Avenue South in Kitchener. Forensic evidence and witness accounts found that the 39-year-old Kitchener woman was beaten to death in Andy Vanezis’s apartment at 105 Mausser Ave. and her body was wheeled in a large recycling bin to the neighbouring park.

After stubbornly maintaining his innocence for 12 years, Vanezis pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September 2007 for killing Bonn in a drunken rage. The admission came on the eve of his fourth murder trial, which would have made him the first Canadian to be tried four times for the same killing.

Vanezis was convicted twice by a jury, but each conviction was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal. His first trial ended in a hung jury.